Some delay having taken place in the payment of this annuity, the Princess wrote a letter, couched in terms of the most sincere affection, to her “dear Mrs. Freeman,” begging her not to think meanly of her faithful Morley for the negligence of her treasurer.
Upon this the Countess began to take seriously into consideration the propriety of accepting her Highness’s kindness. The circumstances of her family were not, as she alleged, great; yet she was far from catching at “so free and large an offer,” until she had sent the first letter from the Princess to Lord Godolphin, and consulted him upon the matter.
Lord Godolphin’s opinion was favourable to the wishes of the Princess. He replied, that there was no reason in the world for Lady Marlborough to refuse the pension, knowing, as he did, that it was entirely through her activity, and the indefatigable industry of Lord Marlborough, that the Princess had obtained her settlement;[[185]] and the proffered income was gratefully accepted.
The good understanding which had subsisted between the two royal sisters had never been based upon sincere affection, and the slightest accident served to discompose, and even to annihilate, their apparent friendship. Anne, who had repented, with tears, of her conduct to her father,[[186]] and was not consoled for filial disobedience by her husband’s expected aggrandisement, was doubtless scandalised by the manifest determination of her sister to encourage every demonstration of public opinion which her father had discountenanced. An occasion soon offered. The only dramatic exhibition which the retiring Queen witnessed was the play of the “Spanish Friar,” which had been forbidden by the late King. But Mary was duly punished for this want of good taste, to say the least of it, or deficiency in filial feeling. The repartees in the drama happened to be such as the spectators, hearing them with preoccupied minds, could readily appropriate to the Queen. Mary was abashed, and forced to hold up her fan, and, to hide her confusion, turned round to ask for her palatine, her hood, or any article of dress she could recollect; whilst the audience, not yet softened towards her by those respectable qualities which afterwards gained their esteem, directed their looks towards her, whenever their fancy led them to make any application of what was said, to the undutiful and unpopular daughter of James; and the Queen, upon another diversion of this kind being proposed, excused herself upon the plea of some other engagement, whilst the affair furnished the town with discourse for a month.[[187]]
It was evidently the policy or pleasure of Mary to retain the different members of her family, as much as circumstances permitted, in subjection. In particular she insulted her sister by a marked indifference to Prince George, her brother-in-law, who, though remembered by posterity as the “Est-il possible” of King James, was a man of respectable conduct, of valour, humanity, and justice.[[188]] William, however, held his brother-in-law in utter contempt; and the manner in which he repaid the Prince’s desertion of his father-in-law, would have been peculiarly galling to a gentleman of a warmer temper than, fortunately, the Prince appears to have been. When William was obliged to go to Ireland, and to enter upon that memorable campaign which finally decided the peace of the United Kingdom, Prince George involved himself in a great expense to attend his Majesty, with a zeal returned only by ungracious and unbecoming conduct,—William not even suffering the Prince to go in the same coach with him; an affront never before offered to any person of the same rank.[[189]]
Prince George, a pattern of patience, one of those characters who have not, and who cannot have, a personal enemy, submitted not only to this indignity, but to every possible species of irreverence, during the whole campaign. He distinguished himself at the battle of the Boyne, and was yet treated by the King, says the Duchess in her “Conduct,” “with no more respect than if he had been a page of the back-stairs.”[[190]]
These slights and disappointments came to a crisis, when the ill-used Prince, determined not again to be exposed to such contumely, requested permission of the King to serve him at sea as a volunteer, without any command. The King, who was going to Flanders, embraced him by way of adieu, but said nothing; and silence being generally taken for consent, the Prince made preparations, and sent his baggage, arms, &c., on board. But the Queen, according to the Duchess, had “her instructions neither to suffer the Prince to go to sea, nor to forbid him to go, if she could so contrive matters as to make his staying at home appear his own choice.”
Mary, in conformity with her invariable practice, followed to the very letter the wishes of her royal husband, and endeavoured to make the Countess of Marlborough her agent upon this occasion. But her Majesty had yet to learn the fiery temper of her with whom she attempted to deal. “She sent a great lord to me,” says the Duchess, “to desire I would persuade the Princess to keep the Prince from going to sea, and this I was to compass without letting the Princess know that it was the Queen’s desire.” The Countess’s reply was, that she had all the duty imaginable for the Queen, but that no consideration could make her so treacherous to her mistress as she should consider herself, if she attempted to influence her in that matter, without telling her the reason; and she intimated that she “would say what her Majesty pleased to the Princess, if she were allowed to make use of the Queen’s name.”
The affair ended in Prince George’s submission to a peremptory message, forbidding him to go to sea, and conveyed through the Earl of Nottingham. He justly felt himself rendered ridiculous to the public, by being obliged to recal his preparations, to obey like a school-boy, and to remain at home.
Whilst these minor events were disturbing the peace of the royal household, the first campaign in Ireland called Marlborough away from the home and the wife whom he loved so well. Every letter to the Countess which he penned during his absence, breathes a devotion which time and distance seem only to have heightened. In the hurry of military movements, in the excitement of unparalleled triumphs, his heart was ever with her. “I am heart and soul yours,” was his constant expression. “I can have no happiness till I am quiet with you.” “I cannot live away from you.”[[191]] Again, he beautifully concludes one letter: “Put your trust in God as I do, and be assured that I think I can’t be unhappy as long as you are kind.” So true and elevated was the attachment of that affectionate heart. “Pray believe me,” he says, writing in 1705, immediately after the battle of Ramilies, “when I assure you that I love you more than I can express.”[[192]] These and other innumerable fond asseverations, even when his wife had passed the bloom of youth, and, it appears, no longer possessed (if she ever did) equanimity of temper, speak an attachment not based upon evanescent advantages. With a candour inseparable from a great mind, he generously took upon himself the blame of those contentions by which the busy and harassing middle period of married life, that period in which love often dies a natural death, is, in all stations, apt to be embittered. On one occasion, after thanking her, as for a boon, for “very many kind expressions” to him in a letter, he says, “in short, my dear soul, if I could begin life over again, I would endeavour every hour of it to oblige you. But as we can’t recal what is past, forget my imperfections, and as God has been pleased to bless me, I do not doubt but he will reward me with some years to end my days with you; and if that be with quietness and kindness, I shall be much happier than I have ever yet been.”